History in Belmont Cragin

Many of the crimes occurred at the Rip Van Winkle Motel in Villa Park, although one of the killers later confessed that a number of women were abducted and taken to a “satanic chapel” in the upstairs bedroom of the cult’s alleged leader, Robin Gecht, at this 2163 North McVicker Avenue in the Belmont Cragin neighborhood of Chicago.  In a gory and perverted twist, at least one of the breasts of each victim was typically severed with a knife or piano wire.  The cultists would reputedly masturbate on the detached breast and then consume a portion of it.  Thereafter, Gecht would store the remainder of the breast inside some sort of box.  (Ironically, Gecht once worked for serial killer John Gacy.)  One member of the Chicago Rippers, Andrew Kokoraleis, was convicted and executed by lethal injection on March 16, 1999, at Tamms Correctional Center in southern Illinois.  His brother, Thomas Kokoraleis, is serving out a 70-year sentence at the Hill Correctional Center in Galesburg, Illinois.  Ed Spreitzer, the third member of the cult, was sentenced to death, but later became one of the 167 death row inmates to have his sentence commuted by Illinois Governor George H. Ryan on January 11, 2003.   Gecht, the only member of the gang not to confess, is currently serving a life sentence at the Menard Correctional Center in downstate Illinois and is reportedly eligible for parole in 2022.  Interestingly, Gecht’s son, David A. Gecht, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in March 1999 in what was believed to be a gang-related shooting.  He was 18 at the time of his arrest and is currently incarcerated, just like his father.